


Nikki

by zaticon1



Category: Emetophilia - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 05:27:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16612769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaticon1/pseuds/zaticon1
Summary: Emetophilia





	Nikki

Nikki

 

The bedroom was dim and quiet. Nothing moved but the blades of the ceiling fan, nearly invisible in the high shadows. They eased around with a siesta slowness, gently and relentlessly washing wave after ghost-breath wave of sultry evening air down onto Nikkis’ limp and fevered flesh. 

She lay, naked and barely conscious atop the bedclothes, nearly lost in their feathery depths. Delirium tried to tell her that the breeze washing over her wasn’t a breeze at all, but that she felt the very shadows of the crawling fan blades; that even these had more substance than the feeble wind that they threw. It even dreamt a sound for her, a faint, sweeping scrape, like a rough palm raking across her eyelids, her breasts, her belly.

The satiny duvet cover felt as coarse as burlap against her tender back and legs and a faint but somehow choking scent of dry cleaning reeked up from it. How could she have not noticed it when she lay down, so long time ago? Hours…..or minutes it must have been. Now, the smell was so strong that it was becoming a taste in her mouth. The evening was too warm for her to feel chilled, but she did, chilled and sweltering. All of her senses had slipped their leashes, somehow, expanded and distorted, twisted, muted and sharpened as if by some strong and poisonous drug.

Had she taken a drug? She remembered……. something……..the taste of something on her tongue……..melting….dissolving……… almost remembered……. almost knew what it was……... It was something that someone had given her……..that she knew, somehow. Yes…….  
Someone…..gave her…..something…………. 

But what? And who? And when? She tried to think. But it was hard when she was so tired. Exhausted. So much had happened, lately ……….. 

Colors………….. 

Disappointment………….

Anger………… 

Desire………………..

Fear…..

Memories and emotions…..images and sensations……… kept floating up from her mental darkness, faint as the shadow wind from the fan, rising and sinking back down before she could identify any but the brightest of them. 

And that one, bright thing…..the only one that seemed clear and entirely real…….

Pleasure. So much of it, running through the tangle of the recent days…..so many kinds……..tittilation………anticipation……….even frustration had a certain kind of sparkle……

But, in the end, it came down to a single kind, the pleasure of her hand; her constant, tireless servant, her fond consort, dependably coming to her rescue, again an again, through it all. Tender and patient, teasing, relentless, and brutal, exactly as she wished, never failing down all those heady days.

Again it came to her, unbidden, to its’ well loved work, releasing her in a bare moment, to the arms of a swooning bilious, sleep. She went willingly, into the dreams she knew would come.

And come they did, graciously indulging…………. 

 

Colors.

Ms. Danning had told Nikki to run over to the Olga Gallery before coming in, Monday. She’d had a special geecle prepared for an upcoming investors’ meeting. The gallery was on the other side of town, so, even if all had gone well, the errand would have taken a while. As things turned out, it killed the entire morning. 

The print turned out to be of ‘The Angel of Home’ by Max Ernst. Nikki wasn’t familiar with that particular piece and on first sight it gave her a real jolt. The image alone was disturbing enough, but it was the colors that got to her, somehow. Ernst had walked very close to the edge with his pallet. One little slip and the whole thing would have been a mudslide. 

Of course he had to have known this and he’d undeniably pulled it off. This, she supposed, was what made for great art. If great art could ever put one in mind of an unrefrigerated side of beef that was about one hour from going bad, that was. But, the boss knew what she wanted. 

When the gallery man handed Nikki the piece, she realized that she could see the reflection in the glass. Ms. Danning had specifically touted the special kind she’d ordered, going on and on about it in her elegant Austrian accent. 

It was a German import kind, with a coating that rendered next to invisible. So, somebody had screwed up. She got on the cell with Ms. Danning, who demanded to speak with Olga, herself. 

After an annoyingly long time, the glass was replaced and Nikki went on her way with the print. When she got in, she took it straight to Ms. Dannings’ huge, glass and chrome office. The two of them hung it on the wall opposite the granite desk. 

The boss absolutely beamed when she saw it in place.

“Look at that texture, Nikki. That’s the whole secret. We laser scan the original and use the data to emboss the geclee, after it’s printed. It’s damn near impossible to tell the difference from the original. 

Ben’s even working on a program that can do the same thing from a printed copy, even a bad one. It recognizes different painting techniques and generates a digital simulation. My God, this is exciting! The investors are going to be thrilled. And WE are going to CLEAN UP!” 

Yes, the reproduction was unbelievable, probably better than the original, if that were possible. If so, the program would have seen to it. It would have analyzed the pigments and reproduced them exactly as they’d been in 1937. 

The boss really got off on providing passionate collectors with pitch perfect recreations of otherwise unattainable objects. Nikki was fine with that. She loved being a part of it, in fact. 

 

Ms. Danning took both of Nikkis’ hands in hers and squeezed them. 

“Fantastic job, Nikki. I’m so glad you noticed the glass. It’s going to make a huge difference. A HUGE one!” 

She let go of the girls’ hands and slipped her arms around her, pulling her forward into a lusty, full body hug. 

“Thanks, again,” she said and turned away.

“My pleasure,” Nikki answered, taking the cue. “I enjoyed it.”

On the way to her cubicle, she thought of how much she truly had enjoyed the morning. The gallery was the most exclusive in the city and spending time with her sexy boss in that palatial office was always nice. 

That surprise hug hadn’t exactly killed her, either. She’d probably…….work with that, tonight. She smiled, not yet knowing that the little outing, as nice as it had been, had caused her to miss a real treat.

Disappointment 

She suddenly remembered something that she needed to ask Chelsey. She swung by the girls’ work station on the way to her own and was surprised to find it vacant and the computer shut down.

“Hey, where’s Chels?” she asked, of the room at large.

It was Jenna who answered. “Oh, she got sick to her stomach while you were out. ‘Ate some bad shrimp. She went home.”

 

Nikki lit up inside like Saturday night. She tried not to tremble or let her voice waver.

 

“She, uh…… she told you that?” Nikki asked.

“’Didn’t have to TELL us anything.” Jenna nodded toward the empty station. 

“She threw up right there. Right in front of everybody. It was HORRIBLE!” 

Jennas’ face looked as if she’d just swallowed a mouthful of lemon juice.

 

“And I had to look at it. She wrapped her arms around her belly and shuddered. “Ughhhhhh, God! I couldn’t even finish my lunch. Not in my condition!” 

 

Nikki looked down at the speckled, blue gray carpet under Chelseys’ chair. There was a huge, oval patch that looked darker than the rest. Of course it did. It was wet!

Her whole body was suddenly covered in a light mist of sweat. It dampened her armpits and slicked the place where her breasts pressed together inside her bra. It beaded in the small of her back and plastered her panties to her skin. Her heart thumped.

“Oh. Oh, that’s………awful,” she said, as blandly as she could. She stared at Jenna. The lemon sucking look on her face had faded, but only slightly.

“Are, uhh….are you gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. Let’s just not talk about, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Sorry.”

In a daze, she went to her station and sat down.

Anger.

“SORRY” was RIGHT! She sat there and pouted as she waited for her computer to boot up. Chelsey, that sexy little drama queen, threw up right there, on the one day in three months when Nikki was. And knowing her, she’d probably been a full tilt Lady Macbeth about it! The pleasant mood she’d been in when she leaft Ms. Dannings’ office was entirely gone. Goddamn PAINTING! FUCK Max Ernst!

Of course, in spite of Jennas’ wishes, the talk all afternoon was about Chelseys’ illness, of how terrible she looked, all the disgusting noises she made, how sloppy she was about it, worse than any drunk, how bad it had been, cleaning up the mess. How it almost made everybody else in the place throw up. Mostly, though, they all kept saying how glad they were that it was only food poisoning and that nobody was going to catch it.

Nikki should have been sky high, hearing it all. But the chatter only made her realize how much she’d missed. No recitation, no matter how hot, could make up for that. And to think that, just a night or two ago, she’d jilled her way off to dreamland imaging the very same girl in the very same fix. And then, she’d missed the real thing by half an hour! Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!!!!!!!! 

A couple of times, when it got to be too much, she slipped away for a few minutes alone with herself, in the ladies’. The ministrations helped, but not much and not for long.

At five, she didn’t leave by the front lobby as she usually did. She slipped out through the service entrance at the back of the building, where the dumpster was. A little disgusted with herself, but too titillated to resist, she went home with a small souvenir. 

Desire

The city was going through a classic July heat wave and the apartment was like a steam bath. She never wore clothes at home, in that kind of weather. She began peeling off her things, letting each article fall to the floor as she made her way to the kitchen. Naked, she switched on the air conditioner, set her purse down on the counter and fixed herself a tall, summer drink. She swallowed it in a few long gulps and immediately prepared another, which she downed the same way. She felt the effect almost immediately. 

“Wow, my metabolism must be running like hell”, she thought.

Well, how could it not be? The image of beautiful, blonde Chelsea, leaning over in her chair and helplessly vomiting her guts out into that chrome plated wastebasket would absolutely not quit running through her mind. It was probably going to stay there for a hell of a long time, probably for months.

 

She picked up her purse and headed off to the bedroom. It was way too hot to get under the covers. She switched on the ceiling fan and sat down on top of the duvet with her back against the wall, closing her eyes and letting her buzz kick all the way in. 

After a few minutes, she opened her purse and took out what she’d rooted through the days’ garbage to find. It was a wadded up tissue. She felt like a total pervert. That was just fine.

She carefully flattened it out and gently placed it atop the curly, walnut colored thatch at the center of her lap. She used the flat of her hand to smooth it down as well as she could then just sat there, staring down at it. Its whiteness was stained with a kiss-shaped imprint of Chelseas’ coral colored lipstick. It was stiff with thick, dried fluid and there were little, pink shreds of something embedded in the crusty surface. Shrimp. 

The arousal that had ridden her all day flared up again. She raised the tissue to her face and inhaled the sweet, sick smell. She let out her breath and slid down on the bed until she was lying flat. The hand not holding the tissue went where it was needed. She gasped, sucking the tissue tightly against her lips, as her fingertips stirred the hungry tenderness they found.

It was over quickly. As she came, she threw back her head and her mouth opened wide. Her sharp intake of breath pulled the tissue all the way into her welcoming mouth. Her saliva flowed, soaking it, releasing the delicate, brazil nut flavor of Chelseas’ vomit. She clenched her teeth until they hurt and screamed, howled like the most feral animal crushed in the most brutal steel trap.

Of course, the single release, shattering as it was, couldn’t begin to quench her. Even before her heart began to slow, she was at herself again. And then again, until she was exhausted, and the tissue was a sopping, disintegrated ruin. Finally, not really spent but to worn out to go on, she slept.

I t was full dark when she awoke. The air conditioner had finally brought a chill into the room. She got up and slipped into a peach colored negligee from the closet. She realized, suddenly, that she was hungry. She went to her laptop and connected with her favorite take out place. She ordered cocoanut shrimp. 

The next morning, Chelsea was still out. Nikki noticed that Jenna was gone, too. She asked the girl in the next cubicle whos’ name was Claire, if she knew what was up.

“Yeah.” 

Claire answered, quietly. She looked up at Nikki, not saying anything more until the girl prompted her.

“Well, what?” Nikki asked. Then, she noticed the expression on the girls’ face. she looked as if she expected to be murdered or something.

“What in the world are you so worried about? Christ, Claire, you look like a basset hound!” 

Claire kept staring at Nikki, almost soulfully. When she finally spoke, it was in the grimmest of tones.

“Chelsea didn’t have food poisoning, Nikki. It’s the stomach flu. Now, Jenna’s got it, too. She just called in with it. Just a few minutes ago. I guess it’s…….really, you know, really………..bad.”

This jolted Nikki even harder than hearing about Chelsea had.

“I hope we don’t all get it.” This last came out in an almost plaintive half-whisper.

She said something else, but Nikki didn’t catch it. Her mind was blaring with the thought what she’d so recklessly done, the night before. She turned away and headed for her station, her mind a full-blown hurricane. She sat down and stared at her shut down computer.

“My God,” she thought, “What have I done? What have I DONE?”

“ It’s what YOU’RE GONNA TO DO, Sweetheart,” a sassy little voice purred inside her head.

“ Yeah……..”

“Well, you wanted it,” the voice went on. “You literally asked for it. You chewed on the Kleenex Chelsey used to wipe the vomit off of her mouth.”

Absently, she switched on the computer and waited for it to come up.

“ Come up”. The words played back in her mind.

Her day was an unproductive blur. No one called her on her lack of performance. The whole office was preoccupied. Once, she spent too long gazing at the bouncing screensaver on her monitor, and felt a sudden vertigo. She froze in her chair, every nerve zinging as her cheeks ran with saliva.

It was to soon, wasn’t it? Just one night and part of a day since she’d done…….  
what she did. It shouldn’t be happening, yet, if that was how she got it. But what if she’d picked it up somewhere else, though? Earlier than that? From the same place as Chelsea, maybe?

She sat dead still for a long time, actually kind of enjoying the panic she was feeling. She’d just about decided that she’d better head for the bathroom, when she was suddenly perfectly all right. She swallowed what had accumulated in her mouth, took a couple of slow, deep breaths and relaxed.

“Ooooohhhhhhhhhhhh…………… ‘Thought that was it, for sure.”

It wasn’t that she was afraid of throwing up, anymore than she was afraid of any intense, out of control experience, like a turbulent flight or a ride on a truly wild rollercoaster. But she absolutely didn’t want to do it right in front of the whole office, like Chelsea. For her the act was just too intimate. She made herself get a grip, put in her time, and went straight home.

Alone in her apartment, she lay on the sofa, thinking about the past couple of days. As pissed as she’d been that first morning, she was beginning to be glad she’d heard all those sexy stories. She’d squirrel them away and, sometime when the mood struck her, bring them out to play. 

“Sometime like now, maybe.” She smiled.

“Yeah. Maybe!” 

She tilted back her head and closed her eyes. Chelsea came out to play.

Afterward, she sat there, contemplating what was probably coming. She knew quite a bit about the stomach flu. She’d had it a few times and, when she was younger, and had always enjoyed looking up articles about it on the inter-net. Some kinds could hit pretty hard. From what all the girls had said, this was probably that kind. Jumping up and dashing over and over to the bathroom all day or all night might not be an option. 

 

She had a big plastic storage tub in the laundry room. That’d work. Put it right next to the bed. Then she could just roll over and share the love. Yeah. That was it. She stood up, got the tub brought it into the bedroom. Perfect. It was long, broad and tall, big enough that she probably wouldn’t miss it and high enough that it ought to catch any splatter. She put a fresh box of Kleenex next to her pillow and a liter of Pepsi on the headboard. She went about it all with a springy jois de vive, as if she were setting up for a party. All through the job she kept getting bright little jolts of realization. She probably really was going to need these things. The Coke would be warm by then, of course, but that was all right. She just liked seeing it all, laid out there, knowing what it all was for. It was a strange but very real turn on.

Her laptop was out in the kitchen, on the breakfast bar. She went to it, raised the lid and typed in a quick search. She needed to decide what kind of shrimp she was going to order for dinner.

The virus marched right on through the office, knocking down each of the girls, one after another. Nikki waited for her turn. Each time she felt the slightest twinge in her belly, or had a headache or a chill, she felt that same sexy little thrill. When nothing came of them, she was actually disappointed. 

She ate way more than usual, that week; big breakfasts, full, sit down lunches and dinners that always included shrimp. And snacks; tons of them. She ate everything she wanted, all day long. She’d been smacked by the throw up bug a couple of times while her stomach empty. That was pure hell and was never going to happen again, if she had a damned thing to say about it. She wanted to be well primed, if the time came. It would make things easier and way more interesting. 

There were so many ways to fix shrimp. She’d never realized how many. Some were really delicious, involving lots of cream and butter. By Friday, her little spree was beginning to show on her figure. If something were going to happen she wished it’d hurry the hell up. 

On Friday, she really did start to wonder if she were going to get the virus. Maybe it was a strain that she’d already had and couldn’t catch again. She’d had another big lunch, a huge plate of Alfredo; chicken, this time, not shrimp. She’d eaten all the shrimp she could stand, for a while, no matter how sexy it was. 

Afterward, she headed back to the office, feeling a little groggy from the heavy meal. It wasn’t a good time for her to be tired, with so many of the girls still out. The workload was killing. Well, she’d just have to deal. She was through the lobby and heading down the hallway when she heard a loud, Peewee Herman voice come blasting out from behind her.

 

“Good morning, Miss Landers!” 

Oh, Jesus! It was Ronny Malenfant, the noisy, redheaded loser from down in maintenance, still crack voiced and acne ridden at age sixty. Every time he ran into her he insisted on going on and on about her looking like the schoolteacher on that old TV show. The disgusting creep always emphasized the final word of its’ title, thinking he was so damned clever. 

She gave him her most freezing look. 

“It’s 1:30 in the afternoon, Ronald.”

He broke out laughing, as if what she’d said were the very apotheosis of hilarity. One day, when he caught her out, the actually broke into song, belting out ‘Teacher’s Pet’ in his shrieking, steam whistle tones. This time though, he only made his stupid, worn out joke and went on his way, howling like a baboon. Good. 

Actually, she did look like that old actress. If, that was, if the willowy little thing had suddenly gained about twenty pounds in exactly the right places and maybe sprung for some exceptionally artful collagen lip work. Yes. Then the match would have been pretty good. She could have passed as the girls more favored sister.

She usually just shrugged off Ronnys’ nonsense. Today though, as she was settling back to work, her mind decided to serve her up a crystal clear image of what it would actually be like to lie under that pale, scrawny body of his, while he hammered one out for himself. She nearly retched.

Nearly retched? Ronny had always annoyed her, but he’d never before turned her stomach. 

Several minutes later, she realized that the nasty feeling hadn’t quite receded. She shifted in her chair and swallowed. That Alfredo lunch really had been big. And heavy. Of course, it had. It was loaded with cream and butter. 

“Cream sours in your stomach,” she thought, “when the acid hits it. It looks like sour milk or cottage cheese. Butter just melts. It turns into a kind of clear, oily stuff. It still looks very yellow, if……..if you……….SEE it, again.” 

Fear

“It’s got me!”

She was scared, all of a sudden, terrified, maybe, but her nipples were bullet hard above her fluttering heart and the place between her thighs warm and good………good and……hungry. That made her smile. “A sick smile,” she thought, giddily. The smile became a giggle, because no other part of her felt remotely hungry.

No, she didn’t feel hungry. She felt full. Really full. Worse than full. Much worse. It was the kind of nausea that you only recognized the second or third time you’d been taken by it. It was vague. You could easily miss it, or deny it, the first time. But it was huge, like the feel of the air, a minute or so before a storm, or the wet smell of a gigantic lake, lying just around the last bend in a long and twisting road. 

Inside her, something incredibly huge moved just the slightest bit. In her mind, she saw some gigantic stone wheel, rolling a microscopic distance. Too small to notice, but pushing everything in her world that first little way toward what was coming.

God! It had been so much fun to imagine an entire, endless day on her knees, vomiting her guts out, over and over and over, running with sick, cold sweat and insane with fever, ending it all by lying spent and battered, knees bruised and maybe even bleeding from banging over and over again on the hard bathroom tiles, the muscles in her belly strained and burning, breasts sore from being crushed again and again against the cold, porcelain bowl…….her throat as raw as a fresh wound, her eyes bloodshot and running…….. burst capillaries staining the whites ………..

The voice in her head spoke again.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about your knees OR your breasts. You’ve got your tub, all ready for you in the bedroom, remember?” 

But, when it was real…………..when it was really going to happen and you’d done it to yourself……

The giant stone wheel moved again. Farther, this time.

When you’d done this to yourself……………the thought of that……..

The thought of that made her want to slip off to the ladies’ room again and masturbate.

 

She swallowed. The taste of her lunch was back in her mouth. But that was all right. It hadn’t yet changed to that awful, poisonous version of itself that it always did, right before the end.

Soda crackers! They usually held things off for a while. She had some in the bottom drawer of her desk. She’d laid them in, just in case this happened. 

She leaned down and opened the drawer. In doing so, she shifted her balance and the big stone wheel moved again. This time, it didn’t just shift. It rolled. 

She took three or four of the crackers, stuffed them into her mouth and chewed. Their salty crispness banished the taste of the fettuccine and settled her down, for the time being. But they weren’t going to stay that way for long. She had to get home. She took an entire sleeve of crackers from the box in the drawer and stood up. She grabbed her purse from the desk and went to speak with Ms. Danning. 

She tapped three times on the frosted glass door. A single word came from the other side.

“Yes?”

The heavy slab swung silently inward with only the barest push of Nikkis’ palm. Ms. Danning, sat, hunched over and staring down at a single sheet of figures. She glanced over at Nikki. The girl saw that her bosses’ make up was indifferently done and her usually shimmering auburn hair looked dull and frizzy. It was pulled back in a ponytail, something that Nikki had never seen on her. Even her expensive navy blazer lacked its’ usual crispness.

Nikki stood in the doorway, with her purse in the crook of her elbow, the tube of crackers in one hand and the other hovering just above the surface of her belly. One look at the girl told the boss everything. Her tired looking eyes didn’t even widen.

“Go home, Nikki.”

That was all.

 

She made it down to the parking garage and managed to get her little green Corrola out onto the street. She was sleepy, all of a sudden. No, not sleepy. Tired. Exhausted. All at once, she was more worried of passing out behind the wheel than she was of throwing up before she could get home. She needed some fresh air. She rolled down the window. The effort left her arm sore and cramped.

She pulled up to a stop sign and waited for her turn to go on. A fat man crossed in front of her and spat out a long and slimy stream of tobacco juice. She closed her eyes. When she did, she saw the stone wheel idling behind the car, stalking her. That was why the she was so tired and why the trip home was taking so long; all that weight she was having to drag along with her. The huge, lunch lay on her like an obese, unwelcome lover, one who was growing more and more insistent and wasn’t going to leave until he had his way. THEN, he’d LEAVE. Until then, he wasn’t going to understand any part of “No”.

 

The hot breeze blowing in through the cars’ open window made her shiver. Well, she’d just have to take it. Cranking up the window would just be too much work. And what if the car became too warm and airless, after she’d wasted all that effort? That would be terrible. A shame. Her eyes misted up, just thinking about it. 

She decided to go home by a different route than the one she usually took. It was shorter, but unpleasant. A lot of the streets were rough and potholed and the neighborhoods, gritty. Of course, the choice was a mistake. The drive descended into a rickrack of brutally long stoplights, detour signs and the upsetting smells of exhaust, road tar and a thousand other things. 

One terrible block took her past an unbroken line of the back walls of almost a dozen fast food places. Their huge, billowing exhaust vents filled the street and the inside of the car with heavy, greasy miasma, stinking of every kind of revolting junk food. 

Every conceivable sort of delay dogged her; roadwork, stalled cars, everything. Once, a woman stopped right in front of her, in the middle of a cross walk, to rummage through her purse. That would have been okay, if she hadn’t been crossing against the light. 

Her stomach rose and fell, but the soda crackers kept it from rebelling. She ate them one after another, mechanically, hoping that she wouldn’t run out before she got home. The worst thing was her crushing fatigue. She wanted desperately to pull over and take a nap, but didn’t dare. She was sure to awaken up even sicker than she already was, probably too sick and weak to go on. Then, what?

 

At long last, she pulled into the driveway of her building and parked the Corolla. She didn’t get out, right away. She knew that she had to get inside as soon as she could, but seeing the long flights of stairs that led up to her floor took everything out of her. Her eyelids grew heavy then shut. Her head lolled forward, snapping her sharply back to herself. A moment later, she was woozy, again. She knew she ought to get inside, but she simply couldn’t find the strength to move. She grayed out again. For how long, she didn’t know but it must have been a fairly good while, because she felt much worse when she came around. She’d been right, then, about not stopping on the way home. She simply had to get going. She pulled her keys from the ignition and picked up her purse. 

She opened the door of the car and put one foot on the pavement. When she leaned forward, the seatbelt tightened against her chest and shoulder. For a moment, she only stared out at the lot, wondering what was wrong. Then, it came to her. She fumbled at the latch and, after a couple of tries, heard the click of its’ release. 

She’d gone a few steps before realizing that she’d forgotten to lock the car. Well, that, like the rolled down window, couldn’t be helped. If she were very, very lucky, she might have just enough energy leaft to get herself up to the apartment, out of her clothes and into that far, far away bed. But she could do no more than that. Not a bit more. So, she kept going. She dragged herself across the wide blacktopped lot and up both long, dirty flights of black metal stairs. It took a long and grueling time.

 

The apartment welcomed her with its’ usual, stifling summer embrace. She dropped her purse and keys onto the kitchen breakfast bar. She started at the noise they made. Her ears rang. Without pausing, she headed to the bedroom, working at the buttons of her blouse as she went. She reached its’ doorway before managing even the first one.

She found the switch that worked the ceiling fan and pressed it. The motor buzzed awake and the blades and began their languid march. Far beneath it, she stood, still working at her buttons. Finally, she managed the last one. 

The zipper on the side of her skirt opened more easily. When the garment dropped to her ankles, she turned and sat down on the bed. She hooked her thumbs into the waist of her pantyhose and pulled them down. Her panties went with them. That left only her bra. When she reached around to unfasten it, her head tilted and she saw the plastic tub. The effect that the sight of it had on her was instantaneous and unsurprising.

Tossing away the bra, she cupped her hands over her breasts and squeezed. Fever baked off of them in waves that she could feel against her face. She drew her legs up onto the bed and lay down, sinking deep into the bedclothes. The breeze from the fan raked over her, chilling, then warming, then chilling as her fever pulsed. 

Consciousness was rapidly slipping away from her. Memories of the recent days swarmed behind eyes, gliding and wheeling like strange birds. They teased. They sparkled. Some were vague, some wrenchingly clear. 

The finest was a lie, her psyches’ consolation for her having missed the golden moment when it all began. It showed her everything, in stunning, exquisite detail, from the tiny, curling hairs on the back of her sweating neck to the stitches and weave of her dress…….

 

Chelsey. 

 

Nikki took her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers and squeezed as hard as she dared. 

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh…………” 

 

It was the only touch she needed. Orgasm flared, burned and exploded, tumbling her down into a sweltering sleep, into a bilous dream…………... 

 

“…..the texture, Nikki.”

Ms. Danning was standing very close, her breath sweet and humid……. whispering………. “The texture………”

Her soft hair brushed pleasantly against Nikkis’ cheek. 

That’s the whole secret, darling…..”

Yes……the texture WAS the secret. But, THAT thing……..The fabulous reproduction only made it worse. That THING…………The more she looked at it, the less she liked the idea of inflicting it on the world. She remembered a passage from some book. The writer said that it was possible for a sound to be as physically upsetting as the stink of rotting meat. She’d read this dismissed it, so long ago. Now she knew that the man was right. This was the proof of it.

Why could she not stop looking at those colors………they were so ripe and florid…….dangerous……..the compliments were so……..close……if any thing happened………..all that power………What could she do, then? What could anyone do? 

It was hard to keep looking at it. So, why did she?

`“That’s the secret.”

Ms. Danning slipped her hand inside Nikkis blouse and raked the tip of her long, lacquered thumbnail across the bare undersides of the girls’ breasts.

That was odd……………..she’d been wearing a bra, when she came in. Hadn’t she? She was sure of it.

No. Now, she remembered. It was on the floor of her bedroom…………. with…..some other clothes……… all of them lying there, in the shadows, looking like a big puddle………That was good …………..Ms. Dannings’ touch was nice……so nice……………

“Do you like secrets, Nikki?“

Her hand slid down Nikkis’ body……..pressing harder as it moved. Everything inside the girl roiled.

“I like secrets. I love them. And you have one…. …. Haven’t you, Nikki? You have a secret! 

My God, this is exciting! You’re excited, Nikki. I can feel it……..”

Her moving hand paused, just below Nikkis’ ribcage and began making slow circles……… 

Nikki would have asked her to not press so hard. But, she didn’t want to open her mouth. 

“I can feel it, Nikki. 

A, deep, menacing noise began on the other side of the room, a rumbling scrape, as if something impossibly huge were being dragged slowly over hard, rocky ground. She turned. Where Ms. Dannings’ desk should have been was a gigantic circular table, crudely made of some ugly, gray stone. It revolved, slowly, around a huge wooden pole, like a telephone pole, that jutted up through its’ center.

Its’ gritty surface was piled high with great heaps of something, something wet and glistening…………..colorful. She had to see what. 

It was………food….…………huge gluts of it, thrown there in slopping, gigantic drifts, like an insane buffet…. Nikki saw every tiny detail of it, mesmerized, as it all rolled on and on. 

Ciopino…..Etouffee……Low Country Boil… cocoanut…..jalapino……..  
marinated…..grilled…….Alfredo……Frogmore Stew……..Japanese deep fried….  
chowder with corn……….Creole gumbo…….Po’ Boys…..Camarones al Ajillo……  
Jambalaya……….Gabriella……………bacon and jalapino………simmering in a deep, chrome plated pan, all shredded and floating in clabbered milk and melted butter……

“There are SO many ways they can be prepared, aren’t there, Nikki?” 

“Yes. Yes…..there are……..”

She remembered…….elegant restaurant plates………..white paper take out baskets with wire handles and little plastic packets of soy sauce……greasy paper sleeves………and waste baskets…………

She looked back at Ms. Danning, who smiled at her with wide open lust.

God, the woman was magnificent. Why had Nikki ever thought that the two of them were wearing clothes? Why WOULD they have?

“Well, we wouldn’t want them ruined, would we? I TOLD you, darling, we’re going to CLEAN UP! And it’s going to be such a BIG job……” 

She stood, now, beside Nikki, at the table. It rolled on, bearing its’ lavish burden……on and on and on………. Ms. Danning slipped her arm around the girls’ waist and squeezed. Nikki sighed and leaned toward her. The table turned faster. Its’ noise grew louder.

“………..our new process……..”

It was SO good to be here, this way, she and Ms. Danning……. enjoying their nakedness……..She’d stay forever, if she could……….

If not for The Angel………….

The motion of the table sped up again, hen she thought of it. In a moment, it was turning so rapidly that the things on it began to blur. The sound of it almost hurt her ears. It wobbled. Its’ load began to jitter and shift. Nikki was faintly worried. 

The angel…………was it causing that? She looked at it. The awful, capering thing was dangerous. She knew this, somehow. But even that wasn’t the worst of it. It KNEW something………and it knew that she knew it did. That was in the very way that it squinted at her from there on the wall. 

What could it be? WHAT? God, she couldn’t think, because of those colors…… and she couldn’t not look at them…..they were so STRONG…..they might do ……..ANYTHING……….. Especially with Ms. Danning squeezing her waist so much too hard and with the room getting so sweatily warm and the table turning so much faster…….SO much faster……….. and…… 

It knew. Yes, she could tell. She stared across the room at it, in defiance.

“Tell me, God damn it!” she shrieked at it, in her mind. “What is it? What the hell are you hiding?”

It opened its’ eyes and GRINNED at her! It gave an earsplitting shriek, and the expensive, German glass protecting them from it shattered. Thousands of tiny, cutting shards filled the air like warm hail. With a revolting slushing sound, all of the colors poured out of the composition, exactly as Nikki’d feared. In an instant, they ran together into a horrible cascade down out from it in a flood that, in an instant, covered the entire floor. Nikki recoiled at the feel of it on her naked feet, hideously warm and slimy. 

The table was spinning now, not of merely turning, roaring around at a psychopathic speed for which it was far too heavy and badly balanced. The eccentric motion rattled the entire room. Panels from the ceiling jolted out of their tracks and swung like pendula. The glass door snapped loose at the hinge points and fell inward, disintegrating with a loud clap. Gaping cracks appeared in the walls. Bits of food from the table, thousands of them, flew off and struck the crumbling walls, bouncing back to land in the stuff on the floor with ugly, wet “Platttt” sounds. The level of the curdled mess came up like a tide. 

Nikki watched it all, countless bright shreds, plunging down into the flood, then bobbing back up, where they tossed on the troubled surface. For the first time, she saw the two things together. She stared. It came to her, then, slowly, a god awful realization as simple and brutal as a punch in the guts. 

“Oh, God! OH, GOD! How didn’t I SEE IT?” 

She looked up at the remains of the angel, now a denuded ghost of ancient, desert bone white and oil soot black, that leered down at her from a landscape gone earthworm gray. It’s bare face, arrow slim and stiletto sharp, confirmed it all.

“Yes, Nikki. Look at it. Look at all of it! All that STUFF you’ve been eating! All that you’ve been GORGING yourself, on all week…… it………and THIS! This filth that sickens you so much………….THEY’RE THE SAME THING!”

The heavy post supporting the crazily whirling table failed with a world-shattering boom. Big chunks of rubble flew through the room, smashing everything.

Ms. Danning pulled Nikki aside. The girls’ feet slipped in the muck and she went down, down…….into that! 

In an awful blunder, she drew in a breath to beg Ms. Danning not to let her fall. Her mouth was wide open when she went into it, not inches of the stuff, but fathoms, miles of it. It poured down her throat and into her, tasting and feeling exactly as she’d known it would. 

Somehow, Ms. Dannings’ arms were still around the waist, crushing her there. Agonizing. 

“I TOLD YOU, NIKKI! WE are going to CLEAN UP!

We are going to clean up after YOU!” 

She was in the dark, desperately crawling over some dry, ropy stuff that snagged at her hands and knees like a fish net. She HAD to get through it…. all of that shattered rock ………she heard it……that awful, grating sound so close and so loud…….ohhh……………that TASTE!

Something was different, though……She should have known what, but……..it was so hard to think with that noise…….. the ragged, grinding power of it seeming to wrack her whole body…….. breaking up in her ears.

Then, she saw the white edge of the plastic tub, just visible beyond the edge of the bed and it all made sense; the awful taste in her mouth, the misery in her guts……………….most of all the noise……

The retch ended just as she collapsed over the tub. Bright gold dots and big, purple splotches bloomed in front of her eyes. The nausea seemed bigger than her entire body. She swore that could feel it in the backs of her legs, the palms of her hands, along her spine…… . It held her right at the edge for a long, brutal time. She spat into the tub and lay there, waiting. It had to come soon………..

A great, sucking breath filled her lungs. Her body stiffened and contorted itself in another painful retch. Her mouth ran with saliva. It spattered out into the tub like the first little drops of a sudden and violent rain. Her vision clouded over. Unconsciousness hovered.

Then, it was on her. The arching fountain gushed out of her, blasting against the far wall of the tub and fanning out in a great splash. Hot little drops splattered up at her up, hitting her face, her arms, her shoulders. It came endlessly, tasting of salt from the soda crackers………..ruined Alfredo…… dozens of things. 

The first real wave ended, finally. She lay, her cheek against the duvet, her limp arms dangling over the tub. She pulled in huge, panting breaths and wheezed them out. 

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…………”

Through bleary, running eyes, she watched it all settle, running down the walls of the tub and pooling in the bottom. She felt a little better, but that always happened. Each time you did it, your body relaxed for a while, relieved. But that didn’t last. Not with stomach flu, anyway. She was going to do it again.

As soon as the thought formed in her head, she felt it. The relief was fading………… she waited for the sickness to take her again.

She never knew how many waves there were. Each time she was certain there couldn’t be anything left in her, there was more. Each time she was certain the nausea had finally releaser her, it took her again, finally wracking her empty body with long, painful spasms. 

Only when there was nothing left for her to give, no tiny bit of matter or liquid for her body to expel, no strength left to contract her muscles, no spark to fire her neurons, did her body let her rest. At last, even her eyes refused to water. 

 

She awoke into that disorienting twilight that gives no hint of the time of day. Was it early evening, or had she slept through the night? She supposed it didn’t matter.

She was lying, face down, over the tub. She’d fallen unconscious there, after everything was over. How man times had she used the tub? She knew that vomit always looked like more than it was. Any liquid did, when you poured it out. But still, there was so…MUCH. It was funny that she couldn’t smell it. But then, she’d been with it for a long time. That was something that always happened, too, smells fading after a while. 

She raised he head. There was a slight ripping noise and she realized that her hair was plastered to the duvet cover. She reached up and ran her fingers through it, breaking it loose from the cloth and from the side of her face. The cover was probably ruined. She supposed she ought to have done something to protect the bedclothes, when she was getting everything ready, that night. Well, she hadn’t.

She realized that she needed to urinate. She looked at the digital clock on the nightstand and, with real effort, managed to bring it into focus. Six forty-three. Six forty-three P.M. So, yes. it had been more than a full day, then. She supposed that she must have visited the bathroom at some point in, what had it been, twenty-eight hours or something? Especially with the virus. But, if she had, she had absolutely no memory of it. Not any at all. 

She had to get moving. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The world swam. The prospect of walking to the bathroom made her think of that long, miserable trudge up the stairs. Well, this couldn’t possibly be that bad. She stood up, wobbled, took a couple of steps and faltered. She put her hand against the wall for support. Finally, she drunk-walked her way down the hall and into the bath. The overhead light bar came on when she flipped the switch. She winced, both from the brightness and from the sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair was worse than she’d expected. And her left arm……..it was coated with something dry and slick, like crusted egg white or even varnish. 

“Ohhhh……………..”

She walked right past the toilet and turned on the shower. When she had the temperature the way she wanted it, she stepped under the stream and let it wash over her, taking away the stickiness and the smells. She let her bladder empty itself. When her strength began to fade, she sat down in the tub and let the water continue to fall on her. She closed her eyes and let her head loll. 

After a few minutes, she shut off the shower and filled the tub. She lay back in the rising water, hands resting lightly on her abused belly. It felt good. Everything felt good, even the exhaustion, the tortured muscles, the raw and swollen throat. She even thought she felt the faint beginnings of hunger. That might not have been, but, after her bath, she’d go to the kitchen and see.

She had no idea what she’d fix for herself. It was supposed to be something bland, she knew. But she didn’t care. When she decided what she wanted, she’d fix it for herself and eat it. If that made something more happen, well, then something more would happen. 

Would she ever eat shrimp again, though? She wondered. 

“Yes,” the same voice that had spoken to her that morning in the office, told her. “Yes.”

“Yes,” she agreed, as her hand rose from her sore emptied belly.

“Yes. Oh, yessssssss……………”


End file.
